Spectrum of revenge: how the FCC is under attack from Congress and AT&T

There's been a rising drumbeat for Federal Communications Commission reform on Capitol Hill ever since the agency helped block the AT&T / T-Mobile deal — and that beat's being led by the nation's biggest carriers, their lobbyists, and Congressional Republicans who evidently want to return to the glory days of monopoly.

Last month a hotly contested bill from Rep. David Camp (R-MI) that would have crippled the FCC passed in compromise under the cover of a jobs act, forcing the FCC to include carriers that meet basic eligibility requirements in spectrum auctions. But the original provisions were much worse than the final law: they would have demolished the agency's ability to regulate spectrum auctions by taking net neutrality out of the picture, as well as its ability to get new competitors into the market. In essence, the version that didn't pass would have served up a publicly shared resource on a silver platter to AT&T and Verizon — and while the bill that passed stops short of handing over public spectrum, it now guarantees AT&T and Verizon can dominate future spectrum auctions unless the FCC can figure out other ways to block them. And now a new FCC reform bill passed by the House of Representatives makes it clear that Republicans are mounting an all-out assault on the agency — one that may begin to be more successful come November elections.